"Nice, Quiet and Relatively Affordable"

Kenwal Road in the Mid-Clayton Valley neighborhood of Concord is a nice residential street filled with the kind of 1970’s style Ranch homes that I remember from my youth in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles. Kenwal Road, which runs parallel to Ygnacio Valley Road just after it comes over the hill by Cal State East Bay, is filled mostly with Ranch style homes.

On its western end, Kenwal runs up right against the green hills and makes you feel like you are at the edge of a populated area (though this is only an illusion since you have the really high density areas of Concord just on the other side of the hill). The Ranch homes that you will find here date from the early 60’s and the most recent ones that have sold have gone for around $325,000.

Along the eastern end of Kenwall there are a number of condos. Like most condos they are fairly small, but are nicely kept and have their own covered parking, which is always nice for rainy days when you don’t necessarily want to get soaked walking from your car. These condos run about $150,000.

Many of these are also up for rent. I came here to look at one of them. It was a one-bedroom for about $1150/month, which is not too bad.

The schools around here are mostly above average, such as Silverwood Elementary and Clayton Valley High which both have APIs of 7--solidly above average. The only school that brings things down a bit is Pine Hollow Middle School, whose API is only 5--dead average.

There are shops and supermarkets here as well so you don’t have to drive anywhere to get to those. Most people, however commute west along Ygnacio Valley Road and that can be a pretty hectic commute since you pick up a lot of the Kirker Pass commuters coming in from Pittsburg.

Overall though, this is a pretty good street--quiet enough to raise kids but not so expensive that you won’t be able to afford to send them to college if you work hard.